The writing is blunt and unemotional. Despite having gone through so much torment andSurprising how a book so full of horrific scenes can be so dull.

The writing is blunt and unemotional. Despite having gone through so much torment and pain, as Sophie stumbles away from her pursuer and there *technically* being descriptions of the agony she's going through, I felt nothing. Not a wince during these chapters. If anything, I was tapping my fingers impatiently, waiting for the story to progress to the next point. The first book was no better, but at least the terrible acts continued almost all throughout, instead of waiting for close to the end for much to happen.

There is one paragraph that has spiders crawling out of a certain person that was more or less the highlight of this book. "A spider crawls out of [spoiler]'s nose and hurries across [spoiler] face, its legs leaving tiny dots of blood on [] skin." Hardly the pinnacle of literary prose, but I liked that image, the tiny dots of blood the spider's footprints. It was far more visceral than any other scene for me. Unfortunately, it was only one brief paragraph in an overly long and rather uneventful walk through Horror Lane.

Oh yes, I just glanced up at the back of book blurb for this book, and it says this: "Danielle Vega—YA’s answer to Stephen King". Baffling, and shows just how meaningless these review comparison blurbs are. A lot of SK's stuff suffers from "I HAVE NO EFFING CLUE WHEN TO END MY EFFING BOOK SO 800 PAGES SOUNDS GOOD" author-itis, and in fact some of his works can be just as tedious as this series, BUT. King's prose is way, way, *WAY* more engaging, and almost every character, no matter how nasty, is given some development, even if all we're shown is a tiny vignette into their lives, so that they still feel real. I don't know anything about pretty much any character in Merciless, as we're shown almost nothing but the most shallow aspects of their being....more

2.75 stars. The narration is, in accordance with how utterly uninteresting and unadventurous Fred is, appropriately beige. That's what you expect goin2.75 stars. The narration is, in accordance with how utterly uninteresting and unadventurous Fred is, appropriately beige. That's what you expect going in. Still doesn't change the fact that it comes off as dull most of the time. Luckily, the actual situations and the other characters are there to spice things up a bit, but yeah, Fred himself is generally boring, and so is his voice. His love interest is boring in the opposite way, being little more than male fantasy manic pixie (or devil, if you prefer) dream girl. Badass in her actions, sure, but shallow as a character. All in all, I was somehow simultaneously bored and entertained, resulting in a middling score.

This book is ridiculous and agonizing and gross and darkly humorous and politically incorrect (it was the 80s) and the cover art for this3.75 stars.

This book is ridiculous and agonizing and gross and darkly humorous and politically incorrect (it was the 80s) and the cover art for this version is so incredible it makes me ashamed of the audiobook cover art. Abby is simultaneously so naïve and earnest that you just can't help rocking between wanting to shake her violently or give her a big hug. All in all, the book is a lot of fun and has convinced me to check out the author's other works.

Would have given it a full 4 stars, but a couple points didn't work that well with me:

- The actual exorcism is too long. Up until that point, the book is snappy in pacing and there was never a dull moment for me. Climax or not, the exorcism just drags on and on. Abby has already had enough grief dumped upon her throughout the entire book that the average teen in her shoes would likely be suicidal--I didn't think stretching it out even more at that point, even to reach her absolute points of despair and desperation, was really needed.

- This is just an issue with the audiobook. While the narrator has an overall good voice for reading, either the director needed to direct her better, or the mixing engineer should have done something when it came to shouting and whispering. Shouts were way too loud and often shrill, while whispering was often too quiet. You don't need to literally scream when the characters do. Many people listening to audiobooks do it with headphones, and we don't like having our eardrums shattered, only to have to turn the volume up even louder to hear the whispering. Most audiobook narrators know how to fake this effectively when reading....more

Bizarre. "Sometimes They Come Back" was probably the weakest of the bunch for me. The others were at least decent, and I felt the titular short was prBizarre. "Sometimes They Come Back" was probably the weakest of the bunch for me. The others were at least decent, and I felt the titular short was probably more comedy than anything....more